Shoojit Sircar enjoying a Bengali meal at Oh! Calcutta. Picture by Amit Datta

His carefully-silhouetted shikaras may still be afloat in many a multiplex-screen across the country, but Yahaan director Shoojit Sircar is already neck-deep into his next project, the Lara Dutta-starrer Amarjeet, to be shot mostly on the streets of Calcutta this winter.

His frequent visits to the city are not just trips to his in-laws in Salt Lake ? they result in the addition of new images to his almost-ready storyboard for the film against tobacco.

?On the surface, it looks like a very dry subject, but I plan to make it into a pacy investigative thriller, with lots of songs,? Shoojit told Metro when he came to the city on Tuesday. ?I have my Yahaan team of Shantanu Moitra and Gulzarsaab, who will give me five songs.?

But the clincher will be the title track, to be sung by Bangladeshi rock icon James. ?I have known him for some time now and I really want him to do the title track for this movie,? disclosed an excited Shoojit. ?If he wants to compose it himself, I have no problems with that. If he is also okay with having Ayub Bachchu on board for the song, then we can even go for a duet number.?

The casting for the film is yet to be complete. While Lara Dutta has been signed, actors for the two male protagonists are yet to be picked. ?There?s a lawyer like Ram Jethmalani, who fights for Lara, and then there?s her fiance,? said Shoojit. ?For the lawyer, we are trying to rope in either Akshay Kumar or Ajay Devgan, while the fiance can be played by Vivek Oberoi or Jimmy Shergill.?

Shoojit plans to can 60-70 per cent of the film in Calcutta and the rest in Delhi. ?I will be shooting on the streets of north Calcutta, in the Dalhousie area, Indian Museum and the Mint. We are having some problems regarding shooting inside the Mint, though.?

The ad film-maker?s debut flick Yahaan started badly, hit by the Mumbai deluge, but thanks to positive world-of-mouth publicity, has picked up considerably. ?We are doing very well at the plexes of Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Chandigarh. Since it?s made at just Rs 3.5 crore, we have done above-average business. The response from within the industry has been terrific and I have been offered films to direct by big production houses.?

After Amarjeet, Shoojit wants to make a pre-Independence period piece and also a dream film set in Agra. ?It?s about how a monument of love, the Taj Mahal, has spun off so many industries. A guide will be my protagonist, who becomes an actor in the end.?